Friday, February 10, 2017

Abruzzo Intrigue (Hardy Durkin Series) by Bluette Matthey

This is one for Italophile fans of the
vicarious-vacation sub-genre of mystery books. Readers travel to
Italy's central-eastern Abruzzo region and visit many of the top
sights along with a hiking tour caught up in the crime capers of
various persons in Abruzzo Intrigue.

Hardy Durkin is the fictional hunky
tour guide at the center of the book, and the Hardy Durkin Travel
Mystery Series.

Books in the Hardy Durkin Travel
Mystery Series so far:

Corsican Justice

Abruzzo Intrigue

Black Forest Reckoning

Dalmation Traffick

Engadine Aetie

Hardy's tours are for:

...folks who didn't mind a healthy trek
during the day, but expected good food and their creature comforts at
day's end.

Abruzzo Intrigue is for readers who
enjoy literate writing, lots of Italian tourist information about the
areas the characters are visiting, some digressions from the plot for
interesting information, and a variety of characters thrown together
in new surroundings.

The assortment of characters with their
individual quirks and needs kept me interested in the story more than
perhaps even the beautiful descriptions of Abruzzo. Those
descriptions are sure to send the reader to the Internet for images
of the places described.

I enjoyed the author's mix of 3rd
person omniscient writing and 3rd person limited writing. The travel
information sometimes slowed the story too much for me to really get
into the mystery part of the story, but it will certainly appeal to
vicarious-vacation lovers.

There were things I didn't like too,
however, like the spoilers in the book's description and Prologue,
both of which I'm sorry I read before starting the book. Some of the
characters' views were not to my liking either, as was the seeming
linking of being overweight with stupidity with one of the
characters.

But all in all, Abruzzo Intrigue is
quality, old-fashioned, time-honored storytelling. The author winds
out various story threads, then weaves them together for the reader
into the final tapestry that is the novel. At the end of the book,
you'll feel like you've visited Abruzzo right along with the
characters!

From the book's description (spoilers!):

Italian Plot Driven by Mystery, Theft, and a Dark Night of the Soul

Abruzzo
Intrigue, finds Hardy leading a hiking tour in Italy's high-rural
Abruzzo region. Dubbed the 'green heart' of Europe, Abruzzo offers the
hikers a heady mix of spectacular scenery, medieval hill towns,
spiritual history, and fresh, pure regional gastronomy. Some of the
cast of characters are who they seem to be, but most aren't. One member
of the group, a grieving widower, plans to steal one of the Vatican's
most precious religious relics, The First Eucharist Miracle, from the
Church of San Francesco in Lanciano, and embarks on a dangerous odyssey
of the soul that ends in redemption. Along the way, Hardy crosses paths
with an Interpol agent, elements of the Italian mafia, an assassin and,
indirectly, an Albanian drug lord. The book is a collision of values
and traditions while hiking through the oft-overlooked beauty of ancient
Abruzzo.

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